Tim

Actin waves guide an outward movement of microclusters in the lymphocyte immunological synapse - EMBO Reports The lymphocyte immune response begins with antigen recognition on antigen-presenting cells, leading to the formation of the immunological synapse—a specialized interface for biochemical and biophysica...

doi.org/10.1038/s443...

Congrats @sudha-kumari.bsky.social on this nice paper out in @emboreports.org 🥳

This is also something that NIH Director Bhattacharya loves to trumpet (as if no other NIH officials before him recognized this problem...)

Yes absolutely

It seems republicans under Trump are continuing this trend? Overall increased NIH budget and very minor cuts to NSF and CDC.

But of course that does not account for grant awards delayed or prior grants cancelled by the current HHS/NIH...

!!!

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

One can assume they identified a gap (in topical area/impact factor) in their portfolio. Such a gap is *certainly* not visible from the outside, but they only do this with clear business rationale.

Nature group: "DO YOU WANT MORE JOURNALS???"
Researchers: "um... not... really? no there are alread-"
Nature: "YESSS HERE YOU GO MORE JOURNALSSSS!!"

group.springernature.com/gp/group/med...

@springernature.com

EMBO EMBL Symposium Microtubules: from atoms to complex systems 17-20 June 2026 EMBL Heidelberg and Virtual

We are pleased to be a media partner for the @embo.org @embl.org Symposium - Microtubules: from atoms to complex systems
Abstract submission: 11 Mar 2026
Registration (On-site): 6 May 2026
Registration (Virtual): 10 Jun 2026

bit.ly/4jDTuMH
#EESMicrotubules

Minor point:
Not defending the publisher and certainly not the authors here, but it is common for the journal to convey the authors’ assertions about the paper, if any.

Thanks Prof Baumelle for the summary of this really exhaustive look at a new post-translational modification of Syk and how it affects phagocytosis!

Super nice work covering stops, starts, and reversals in axonal traffic. Congrats!

🔬Join our #ReproductionMS seminar with Dr.
@maikbischoff.bsky.social on "Coiling a Duct: How Mesenchymal Cells Sculpt Male Reproductive Organ Architecture" this Wednesday, 11 February 12pm CET. DM for Zoom details.

Hello epithelial mechanics fans!! I’m Juanma @juanmagararc.bsky.social 👋 I work on cell mechanics (see celldynamicslab.com) and use Flipper-TR FLIM to probe membrane biophysics in cells.

Join me on this tour about Flipper: what it measures, strengths, advice, cool case studies, and cute drawings!

Let's look at this wikipedia article... ah yes.

The first person listed under "speakers" is this guy. There is no one at Brown by this name... The homepage link takes you to a wikipedia article about him.

But h index = 137!!

One of the spammy things you see repeatedly as a journal editor are invitations to publish conference proceedings. They get to have a paper and the targeted journal collects an APC.

Like this one. Is this real? Who knows

👀

Quite! I'm poking around the topic of null results lately and the issue brings one immediately to big/old/fundamental philosophical problems in scientific knowledge production.

A lesser known quote from Bacon

Definitely putting this in an editorial reject letter:

“For he that delivereth knowledge desireth to deliver it in such a form as may be best believed, and not as may be best examined.”

Sir Francis Bacon griping about publication bias in 1605 😍

From Steven Jay Gould’s collection of essays Dinosaur in a Haystack

Wiley: "We’re supporting responsible research assessment practices" onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/1520...

Also Wiley: "Prove that your article is a good fit for this journal 😉😉😉😉😉 by citing at least two of our articles in your manuscript before we will even consider reviewing it" 🤡

Cell Bio 2023-An ASCB|EMBO Meeting Network, learn, and collaborate with top cell biologists from around the globe.

You can submit proposals for scientific sessions at CellBio aka ASCB until Feb 22nd. This includes minisymposa, special interest sessions workshops.

If you thought CellBio should improve, now is your chance to make that happen 👇
www.ascb.org/cellbio2026-...

Last a huge finding on PD-1 signaling from T cell whisperer Ron Germain. Targeting PD-1 boosts anti tumor immunity short term but they argue it also impedes formation of high-avidity effector clones.

I wonder if this tanked some immuno-oncology pharma programs...

doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Cross-presentation of dead cell-associated antigens shapes the neoantigenic landscape of tumor immunity - Nature Immunology Here the authors show DNGR-1 expressed by cDC1s promotes CD8⁺ T cell priming to cytoskeletal neoantigens from dying tumor cells, thereby shaping cancer immune visibility and tumor evolution through im...

Next, master of dendritic cells Caetano has an update on dead cell recognition in the context of tumor immunity:

We knew DC use exposed actin to gobble up dead cells. Here they show if you tether a model tumor antigen to actin, you get better anti-tumor immunity. Neat!!!

doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Target cell cortical tension regulates macrophage trogocytosis - Nature Cell Biology Cornell et al. show that target cells with low cortical tension induce macrophages to preferentially trogocytose, or engulf in small fragments, whereas target cells with high cortical tension tend tow...

keeping up (barely 🥴) with my fave immunologists!!

First: Sometimes macrophages nibble (trogocytosis) and sometimes they chomp (phagocytosis).

@fletcherlabucb.bsky.social nicely show how target cell mechanical properties bias macrophage behavior. Beautiful work!

doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Updating a 56 year-old JCB paper with digitized videos from 16 mm film 😍. Well done first author Tom Pollard!!

A pleasure to work with these authors on this study! Check out very nice imaging showing ER-microtubule interactions in regenerating axons.